Good, Better, Best

I thought this week I might focus on the art of post-processing.

First of all what is post-processing? Our predecessors would enhance their images by working on them in the darkroom. They were capable of doing more beyond dipping photographic paper into developer and fixer baths. Photographer Ansel Adams was a master of black and white photography and the zone editing system. In the darkroom he would dodge and burn the film to bring to life details the camera could not capture on its own.

Digital photographers utilize software like Lightroom, Capture One or Photoshop to develop or finish their portraits. A lot of how we shoot and edit is a direct homage to film photography post-processing. We have even maintained some of the same teminology even though the process is very different.

Most clients are aware of Photoshop and some are familiar enough with it to ask if a certain number of years or pounds be removed from their photograph. With pet photography, we usually do more than remove dog-tags, leashes and collars. To date my most unusual ask was to make a male dog a tad more modest… if you catch my drift.

Below find three versions of the same image. Each image represents a different part in the ‘develop’ process. The image below illustrates a fully edited version of an image from Bernard’s adoption photo session. The second image represents the image with some Lightroom edits. The final shows the image as it was captured by my camera on the day.

The final edit

The halfway point

As photographed

Also I would be remiss if I did not mention that Bernhard is still looking for his furever home. He is a senior Beagle who has arthritis but he doesn’t let it hold him back. He is friendly, curious and cute as a button. Please head over to Speaking of Dogs Rescue to learn more about Bernard and the other dogs there, that are waiting to love you.

It doesn't always go according to plan

In an older blog, I wrote about a recent adoption photo session that went really well for me. I guess I spent far too much time dwelling on the experience. I had an adoption session this past weekend and this time I was drop-kicked by Murphy and his law.

I was scheduled to meet Bernard, a 10 year old Beagle, at the home of his foster family. To save set up time I prepare as much of my equipment ahead of time as I can. For example, I preload all the batteries into my speedlights. My intention is to be fully up in running within minutes as some dogs can have particularly short attention spans. So the idea is to get to snapping long before the dog in question ‘squirrels’.

To my shock and horror my flash refused to fire. My first thought was that something blocked the trigger signal but that was not the case. Was my speedlight broken? Nope. As per usual, the problem existed behind the camera. I had put one of the batteries in upside down. After I loaded it correctly the speedlight fired and we were in business. Or were we? Nope, Murphy was still not done with me.

The speedlight fired and immediately stopped working. At this point I break out into what I can only hope is an internal cold sweat. You see Bernard was already on set and I knew I had to get things going quickly before he stormed back to his trailer. It turns out that I had accidentally switched the main speedlight from Group 1 to Group 3, so basically the two lights weren’t ‘talking’.

Bernard was a consummate professional and he was not at all bothered by the late start. When it was time for him to turn it on, he did and he was a pleasure to work with. Bernard is arthritic and based on what I had read on bio, I was expecting him to be a lot less active and a lot less ambulatory than he ended up being. With  ‘dogged’ determination he refused to let his arthritis keep him down.

I am pleased to report that even after the false starts, I was able to come away with a number of images of Bernard that showed him in his best ‘light’. We were even able to shoot outdoors, I was not sure we would have been able to pull that off. The weather network called for snow that day but that did not materialize. Instead we had rain and milder temperatures. It made it difficult to find snow and even more difficult to avoid the less picturesque wet ground.

Once again I invite everyone over to the Speaking of Dogs Rescue website to get more information on Bernard and/or any of their other rescues. Spread the word, let’s get these dogs adopted!